Super Mario Bros. (1993)

This is gonna be hard to rate.

I almost don't know what to say about this movie considering it's been talked about enough since the movie came out and even more so when internet critics became popular, so all it comes down to is my opinion. Now the idea of a Mario movie doesn't sound difficult even despite the sheer lack of story in the games at that point and quite frankly beyond, so I genuinely do appreciate what they did and what they were trying to do. Seeing Mario and Luigi as plumbers from Brooklyn works really well, and they feel real enough so that when the weird shit happens they don't just immediately roll with it and have a solid course of action. True the whole parallel dimension thing is a bit odd but how would they have introduced all the fantastical stuff? That's kinda the problem with this movie, it's really not a clean cut good/bad kind of film, it's a mixed bag of good stuff, perplexing stuff, and interesting stuff. I feel it almost has to be a split rating, what do you think of it as a movie and what do you think of it as an adaptation of a game? So let's dig in a bit. The story or more the set up for the story is hit and miss, with the Mario brothers going about their normal business when they meet a young girl named Daisy with a mysterious origin and not long after that she gets kidnapped so they go after her. And then it gets weird, falling through a dimensional fissure they emerge in the city of Dinohattan where all residents naturally evolved from reptiles instead of apes led by the tyrannical Koopa who has plans to invade our dimension to further his kingdom so the boys gotta get back Daisy, thwart Koopa, and somehow get back home. Not a horrible story on paper, and the logistics and worldbuilding they do may be considered too realistic but I feel it helps the movie's style and tone. Dinohattan is a mish mash of Blade Runner, Mad Max, with an unhealthy overdose of fungus and the script thinking of what if there was a world with reptiles but no mammals. So they did put effort into crafting this world and thinking it out. There's no fossil fuels so everything including the cars are electric, there's no furs or much cloth for clothing so it's mostly leather, the denizens move more like dinosaurs and aren't completely evolved to look like homosapiens. All those neat touches add to the score and it's genuinely a world I would want to see evolve through more movies. The characters are defined well enough with good acting and decent chemistry I found with some offbeat things about it but nothing bad. The effects are really really good actually, again going back to a time where CGI was used only when necessary so the vehicles, props, Goombas, Yoshi, and stunts were legit! You cannot prove to me otherwise that Yoshi is real and alive, it's right there breathing and moving in front of your eyes! The music's okay but it's got some good tracks that I enjoy. With so many good points you'd think why exactly do people hate this movie yet I know the friggin' answer. The production was a nightmare and I can pin this down to two sources, the directors and the studio. The studio wanted something more kid friendly and colorful while the directors who were a married couple wanted to give it some edge and not just make a kids movie. Not horrible intentions of course, but how the actual production went, in particular the shooting, made the project into a shit show. Constant daily rewrites, the directors not communicating the schedule and what they had to get shot, rushed in editing, and emotions ran high. It really sucked reading that Bob and John were utterly miserable on the set to where they had to drink heavily just to make it through, cause I do like their performances and the energy they bring when working in tandem together. They genuinely are decent in the lead roles, I like the romances they have with Daniella and Daisy respectively, that's not a bad element to the story. Dennis Hopper as Koopa, weird ass choice but he accepted, and unfortunately doesn't get to go batshit but I can't truthfully say he sucked in this either. Of course you got your little references and easter eggs and those are cool, I totally want a wind up Bob-Omb! And you know maybe, just maybe, I'm being nice because I was a fan of this movie when I was young but I also haven't watched it in about 15 years and I'm just calling it as I see it. Regardless of what you think about the quality of it, it's a fascinating little movie. The fact that whatever momentum it had going for it was completely nuked by the release of Jurassic Park just 2 weeks later in and of itself is crazy. The 90s man, the fuck was with this decade and dinosaurs?? I was a dinosaur kid for a lot longer than most other kids, we're talking from like 98 or 99 all the way to about 2004, all due to this decade's fascination with these legendary extinct creatures. But the movie has a fanbase that seems to be growing bit by bit over three decades since it's release with some individuals finding a print with many deleted scenes and made a pretty packed Blu-Ray from what I've heard. And yeah, you're gonna have to buy that Blu-Ray. Why? Because this movie is on zero streaming platforms, you either need to own it on home video or be like me and taped it off Starz in the early 2000s and you still have your VHS of it all these years later. It's the only true way to watch it in my opinion. So what's the score here? As an adaptation of a Mario game, of which there were about 4 console games at that point, I'd give it a 6/10. But just as a movie all by itself, I'm gonna give it a 7/10. It's really not that bad, just a bit odd in how it came to be. And if you really need a second opinion of it, Shigeru Miyamoto the creator of the Mario series, stated that the movie may have been a little too close to the games and focused on being a video game movie instead of just a fun movie on it's own. Maybe he's just being nice too, but I don't doubt the man himself. So 30 years have passed, video game movies are at a better standing now than they ever were, so what will the new movie accomplish? Will it just be a 90 minute cutscene from the new games, or will it have something going for it? Well I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, I haven't heard the Mario voice or any voice for that matter. See you tomorrow.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Why have I been sleeping on my ass for the past 7 years before getting to this movie?

I really and truly think this movie doesn't get half the praise it truly deserves, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a movie worthy of discussion, analysis, praise, and overall enjoyment regardless of age. It's such a unique and bonkers yet brilliant idea to esentially set a real world crime noir in the bright and slapstick world of cartoon characters. Set in 1940s Los Angeles a gruff private investigator named Eddie slowly gets enbroiled with cleaning the name of cartoon star Roger Rabbit as he's set up for murder, but Eddie has a damaged past and cares nothing for toons yet more pieces fall into place and the plot thickens. Already the cast in this movie is what makes half the movie as great as it is, Bob Hoskins is a trememdous lead and effortlessly acts through the film despite that none of his toon co-stars are there in the flesh (in a sense), George Fleischer couldn't play a bumbling yet still very much fearing for his life toon better if he tried, Christopher Lloyd might have his coolest look in this film and it's indeed a different role for him but one I feel to be almost the most effective, and I tip my hat to Kathleen Turner for giving us the voice and personality of Jessica Rabbit in all her glory. Rock on. Now we get to talk about the technicals which is an obelisk sized task in just text, they have entire behind the scenes documentaries on how they blocked, shot, interacted, and implemented all these animated characters, props, and scenery. It is ingenious and any film school that doesn't talk about it in some way is a hack, they had to use in scale to the animation rubber replicas of the characters and I don't know how to describe it, cause they key out the dummy and layer the animation and it looks seamless. And this was a huge huge deal at the time, this was the movie where Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse shared a scene, nothing like that happened before. Even with movies like Space Jam A New Legacy it was still all properties of Warner Bros., but this is where every animation studio chipped in and that was a huge deal before the 90s, and even then it wasn't a common occurence, plus I'm a nerd for this kind of thing so I'm peering in the background naming any characters I can. I will admit it's been a few years since I last saw this movie but, I'm not entirely sure this was made for kids. I mean Looney Tunes were primarily believe it or not, made more for adults but kids loved it and it still worked. The same applies to here, we get some pretty gruesome deaths both seen and implied, Eddie drinks a fair bit, Jessica Rabbit I don't think I need to say much more about her, you get a little bit of language, it just seems more geared towards at least older kids and adults. That didn't stop me though, I must have saw this when I was maybe 10 years old and I absolutely loved it. I loved the story, the characters, the humor, the musical score mother of pearl! Let me tell you right now, real talk, I cannot listen to the first half of Valiant & Valiant without getting in an emotional mess and weeping. It is that damn good, and the music score is very jazzy/bluesy which I adore endlessly. I mean I don't think I need to tell people to go see it, it's an incredibly strong film even if the mystery aspect isn't absolute shall we say, I can't recommend it more. But what's the score? I don't know if I wanna give it an 8 or 9. It deserves either but I'm gonna give it a 9/10, 4 stars check it out!